


Cecil Becomes A Mage

by OtakuElf



Series: The Qunari War [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Healing, Mages, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:48:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7977328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil did not expect to become a mage.  He was going to be a baker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cecil Becomes A Mage

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to the Qunari War.

Cecil was teased so often about his size that he had ceased to listen to his tormentors. Six feet tall at ten years of age was not regular, nor desirable. “Qunari!” and “Dragon foot” were the least of it all.

Oh, size might have been an asset if one’s driving ambition was to be a templar or a guard of some sort, or to go off to fight the Qunari. Cecil was going to be a baker, like his grandfather. His father joked that the talent skipped his generation. Da and his brother worked in the shop selling bread and pastries, which left Cecil and his grandfather free to experiment and create with flour and yeast. “What shall we try this morning, Sass?” “Something interesting!” was heard after the bread and standard items were done.

Mama cleaned for the local chanty, and it was the Revered Mother there who had recommended that his parents take Cecil to the capitol to see a registered healer. Revered Mother Marlene told her, “Take your boy to Denerim. The Chantry has sanctioned a healer that I know well. Oldwin. Dalish, but not standoffish at all. He’ll help your Cecil if anyone can.”

Healer Oldwin was much smaller than Cecil, and very much older. Starting with all of the tappings and measurings that Cecil was used to from the bannorn’s physician, the old elf - he had to be at least thirty years old Cecil thought - explained every step of the magical examination process to Cecil and his parents. Cecil translated it all into terms of baking. There was a receipt to be followed, and a time they would need to stand back to allow things to rest - like yeast in its rising.

They were cosy enough in the darkened room, Cecil lying on a small cot - his heels touching one end and the top of his pate the other. His Da and Mama had been shooed out by an elderly Dalish woman - at least as old as the healer - who had brought them all tea earlier, along with spice cookies that were not as good as the ones that Cecil made.

Eyes locked on the spreading horns of Healer Oldwin’s tattoos, Cecil fought a flinch as the soft, dry hands cupped his face. Greenish light - it had a silvery hue to it as well - enveloped his head, and grew to surround his oversized body. The pervading feeling was not unpleasant. It was warm, and lively. Not itchy exactly. Cecil was not active by nature, but it made Cecil want to run as hard as he could. To run and run and run.

“I have discovered an adenoma. It is a tumor on the pituitary gland, which regulates growth in children. It can lead to something called ‘giantism” although it has nothing to do with actual giants,” the healer reassured the family.

“A tumor? Giantism?” Cecil’s mother squeaked, her worn hands wringing the cotton kerchief that had slipped from her head.

“It can be healed. It does take some time, however, and Cecil would need to stay in Denerim for the treatment.”

“Tell us about the treatment,” his father’s stressed tenor directed, “And we will need to know the costs, as well as what will happen if this is not treated.” His Da could always be trusted to break a problem down into understandable chunks. It’s what made their bakery so successful, in spite of Grandfather’s flights of fancy.

Cecil floated, seated in the old and solid wooden chair, his thoughts racing around much as his body had wanted to before. Something was wrong with him. It had a name. Adenoma. It sounded like an old lady’s name. The healer could fix it. Could fix him.

In the end, Cecil stayed in Denerim, working downstairs from the Healer’s rooms in a sundries shop to earn his keep. His family’s bakery provided the money needed for treatment by the healer. Cecil was well aware that most did not have that option of magical healing, especially for a condition as odd as his. Mages were expensive, and usually only hired by the wealthy, or by the government or Chantry.

His bed was in the long room at the top of the house with apprentices from the store. The ceiling was low, and slanted. Cecil chose to sleep with his feet by the wall, so that he would not sit up in the night and slam his head into the sloped attic ceiling. The other boys and girls who worked in the shop were nice enough, though they looked at Cecil as something of a simpleton, as well as a country bumpkin. Cecil was not stupid, but he did need time to puzzle out answers to situations in this new place. Also, Cecil was still only ten years of age.

Every afternoon, after Cecil was done in the shop, Healer Oldwin would sit with Cecil in his dark rooms, place his hands on Cecil’s shoulders, and flood the boy’s body with carefully directed healing energy. A welcome hot flush, yet cold at the same time. Oldwin explained exactly what he was doing, and patiently answered all of Cecil’s questions, though it took a while for Cecil to finally ask them. After the healing sessions Cecil would ache ferociously all over, with fatigue so strong his body would be too heavy to move. The darkened rooms were blissful then. 

Oldwin was shrinking the adenoma, placing its components into Cecil’s blood and ensuring that they were carried away to be excreted, and not to end up causing harm to another part of Cecil’s body. The silvery hue to Oldwin’s magic was only present when he was examining, or scanning the cells that made up the boy’s tall frame. Otherwise his magic was green - Dalish magic, Oldwin told Cecil. Oldwin could have been a keeper in _Arlathan That Is_ , but chose instead the less strenuous task (he said) of healing those in need. Even the "hasty", the shemlen. Cecil took it to heart not to be "hasty" if he could at all help himself.

Oldwin’s wife, Laranna, would stuff Cecil full of sweets and herbal tea, and tell him tales of _Arlathan That Was_ , and _Arlathan That Is_. Her vallaslin, as Cecil learned the tattoos were called, was a pattern of the rhythm of water. As much as the boy missed his parents and grandfather, he found the healer and his wife full of interesting stories and gentle goodwill.

The owner of the sundries shop had difficulty understanding that Cecil was only ten. As did the apprentices. And he was not about to remind them. It was different, living in a place where the townspeople had not known him from birth. Cecil was shy, but he liked being treated as an adult. 

The apprentices drew mustaches on his upper lip with charcoal, and on one occasion got him tipsy on strong ale before Oldwin rescued him. Their healing session went on as scheduled in spite of Cecil’s hangover. Fatigue and pain afterward were made manifold by the queasy stomach and pounding headache. Cecil lay on his cot, aching everywhere, and trying not to groan.

He returned to work the next day to find his fellows sheepish and repentant after a tongue lashing delivered with Laranna’s accented common tongue.

Jessamyn, who was almost a journeyman, gave Cecil an impression of Madame Laranna, “Ashamed you should be! Ashamed! Cecil is just a boy for all his size, and you ply him with poison!”

“Who talks that way,” wondered Mark the Miller’s son, “Plying you with drink? It’s like something out of an Orlesian drama!”

“We are sorry, though, Ces,” put in Gishof, who at thirteen was the closest in age to Cecil, “We didn’t think it would make you so sick.”

Jessamyn lowered her voice to confide after the others had left. “It made all of us sick. Even that little bit. I’m staying away from Dwarven Ale after this.”

Cecil though he might, as well.

Healer Oldwin, otherwise, seemed pleased with his progress. They spoke often of when Cecil could return to the bakery, and to working again with his grandfather.

One night, surrounded by the snuffling snores of the other apprentices, Cecil found himself kneeling behind the dough tray at his grandfather’s workplace. They were kneading bread at the floury surface. “It’s all right, Sass, if you find another path. You will still be able to come home. And even if you don’t, you’ll take me along wherever you go.”

“Why would I leave, grandfather? I love what we do,” Cecil did not stop, enjoying the sticky pull of the elastic dough on his floury fingers. Otherwise, the room did seem odd, different. Angles were not straight. Granted his home and the bakery had been built many decades before even his grandfather had been born. Beams and door posts leaned a little, but not in such a slope as in his dream. Also, the kitchen had no ceiling. Or a roof at all. 

“Grandpa,” whispered the boy, “Where did the roof go?”

The old man looked around, unseeing, then up. “Well. what do you think of that, Sass? What happened to my blighted roof? My room is gone! And is that the bath sticking out over the yard?” 

Wiping wrinkled, rheumatism gnarled hands on the cotton cloth tied at his waist, the old man walked out the empty doorway to what was once the cold room door. Dusting his own floured hands on a bit of cheese cloth, Cecil followed him, and the two of them stared up at the bottom of the stone bath. “Will you look at that!” Cecil heard his grandfather say faintly as the boy opened his eyes to the dawn.

Disturbing enough as a dream, it affected his entire day. Cecil’s large feet tripped over crated bottles of Antivan brandy, breaking three. The strong smell followed him all morning, garnering odd looks from the shop’s customers. A wrinkled old woman gave a sniff and a fierce frown when he tried to help her carry the supplies for her tailoring establishment home. Miscounting wooden spools of cord earned a sharp word from the shop owner, Ser Julian. Assisting Laranna, Cecil overbaked the quick breads for luncheon. This was upsetting on a whole new level.

“Cecil is traveling under a black cloud today, Lethallin,” Laranna told her husband over herbal tea as they waited for the boy to climb the narrow stairs for his treatment. She kept her face sober as her husband turned his bright, dark eyes to hers, though they still made her heart race after these many years. Oldwin narrowed those gleaming eyes at her. “He is? What is wrong? His treatment is going well. Has he said he is in pain?”

“Not pain,” his partner of many years answered with care. “He is distracted, I think.” 

Oldwin gave a grunt in reply, while thinking how to phrase his questions. “I will speak to him about it. Today would be the day for an examination, I believe.”

After a session filled with open pathways and the glorious rush of green and silver light, the old Dalish healer asked, “Are you having pain, Ces?”

“No, ser,” because truthfully, the feelings were not pain, exactly. Not like a cut. Or a headache.

“What is troubling you, then? For it seems that something has your attention,” Oldwin said as he pulled a mortar and pestle across the table, and began to crush diced elfroot for a potion.

Cecil stared down at his large folded hands on the table. “I dreamed of my grandfather, ser. He told me that I might choose another path. But our house, it had no roof, and everything was,” he flapped his hands, “off.”

Oldwin chuckled, “Off? How was everything off?” as he continued to grind the elfroot into paste.

A heavy sigh preceded, “the sky. It was the color of an old bruise. Grandfather’s bathtub was sticking out of the side of the house where the roof was supposed to be. The air was thick. Not like for breathing, but for seeing. And there was an island floating in the sky with more buildings on it, but I didn’t recognize them.” Looking up, he realized that Oldwin had stopped mashing the herbal root, and looked into staring wide eyes. 

“Cecil,” the old Dalish said quietly, “You remember the Fade?”

“What?” Cecil asked, “Like you told me about? Like mages? Like magic?”

The wizened face sober, Oldwin nodded. Shoving the pestle into the large, white stone mortar, he cleaned bits and pieces of elfroot with a cloth, a move reminiscent of Cecil’s grandfather in the dream. “Come,” Oldwin said standing and reaching for the old, twisted stick that served as his staff. 

“Where?” Cecil heard his own voice crack with the question.

“To the Circle,” Oldwin said with a slight smile. “It is not so fearsome a place, Cecil. We will go and see if they can tell you about your dream.”

Well, when Oldwin had told him they were going to the Circle, Cecil had assumed that they were going someplace in Denerim. It was with a sense of unreality that he stood on the creaking deck of a ship, as they passed along the coast of Ferelden, on the way to Amaranthine, and the Circle at Vigil’s Keep.


End file.
